1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved process for the removal of sulfur compounds from a full boiling range naphtha, preferably fluid catalytically cracked. More particularly the invention relates to an improved process for removal of the thiophenes from the lower boiling or light fluid catalytic cracked naphtha. More particularly the present invention relates to a process wherein thiophene contained in the naphtha is first converted to n-butyl mercaptan in a first reaction zone and the n-butyl mercaptan and other mercaptans are reacted with diolefins in a second reaction zone to form sulfides. The sulfide product of the mercaptan and diolefin reaction is higher boiling than the light naphtha fraction may be removed by fractional distillation. Very little of the mono olefins in the light fluid cracked naphtha is saturated.
2. Related Information
Petroleum distillate streams contain a variety of organic chemical components. Generally the streams are defined by their boiling ranges which determine the composition. The processing of the streams also affects the composition. For instance, products from either catalytic cracking or thermal cracking processes contain high concentrations of olefinic materials as well as saturated (alkanes) materials and polyunsaturated materials (diolefins). Additionally, these components may be any of the various isomers of the compounds.
The composition of untreated naphtha as it comes from the crude still, or straight run naphtha, is primarily influenced by the crude source. Naphthas from paraffinic crude sources have more saturated straight chain or cyclic compounds. As a general rule most of the “sweet” (low sulfur) crudes and naphthas are paraffinic. The naphthenic crudes contain more unsaturates and cyclic and polycyclic compounds. The higher sulfur content crudes tend to be naphthenic. Treatment of the different straight run naphthas may be slightly different depending upon their composition due to crude source.
Reformed naphtha or reformate generally requires no further treatment except perhaps distillation or solvent extraction for valuable aromatic product removal. Reformed naphthas have essentially no sulfur contaminants due to the severity of their pretreatment for the process and the process itself.
Cracked naphtha as it comes from the catalytic cracker has a relatively high octane number as a result of the olefinic and aromatic compounds contained therein. In some cases this fraction may contribute as much as half of the gasoline in the refinery pool together with a significant portion of the octane.
Catalytically cracked naphtha gasoline boiling range material currently forms a significant part (≈⅓) of the gasoline product pool in the United States and it provides the largest portion of the sulfur. The sulfur impurities may require removal, usually by hydrotreating, in order to comply with product specifications or to ensure compliance with environmental regulations, which may require the sulfur of the final product to be below 50 wppm.
The most common method of removal of the sulfur compounds is by hydrodesulfurization (HDS) in which the petroleum distillate is passed over a solid particulate catalyst comprising a hydrogenation metal supported on an alumina base. Additionally copious quantities of hydrogen are included in the feed. The following equations illustrate the reactions in a typical HDS unit:RSH+H2→RH+H2S  (1)RCl+H2→RH+HCl  (2)RN+2H2→RH+NH3  (3)ROOH+2H2→RH+2H2O  (4)Typical operating conditions for the HDS reactions are:
Temperature, °F.600-780Pressure, psig 600-3000H2 recycle rate, SGF/bbl1500-3000Fresh H2 makeup, SCF/bbl 700-1000After the hydrotreating is complete, the product may be fractionated or simply flashed to release the hydrogen sulfide and collect the now desulfurized naphtha. The loss of olefins by incidental hydrogenation is detrimental by the reduction of the octane rating of the naphtha and the reduction in the pool of olefins for other uses.
In addition to supplying high octane blending components the cracked naphthas are often used as sources of olefins in other processes such as etherifications. The conditions of hydrotreating of the naphtha fraction to remove sulfur will also saturate some of the olefinic compounds in the fraction reducing the octane and causing a loss of source olefins.
Various proposals have been made for removing sulfur while retaining the more desirable olefins. Since the olefins in the cracked naphtha are mainly in the low boiling fraction of these naphthas and the sulfur containing impurities tend to be concentrated in the high boiling fraction the most common solution has been prefractionation prior to hydrotreating. The prefractionation produces a light boiling range naphtha which boils in the range of C5 to about 250° F. and a heavy boiling range naphtha which boils in the range of from about 250-475° F.
The predominant light or lower boiling sulfur compounds are mercaptans while the heavier or higher boiling compounds are thiophenes and other heterocyclic compounds. The separation by fractionation alone will not remove the mercaptans. However, in the past the mercaptans have been removed by oxidative processes involving caustic washing. A combination oxidative removal of the mercaptans followed by fractionation and hydrotreating of the heavier fraction is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,320,742. In the oxidative removal of the mercaptans the mercaptans are converted to the corresponding disulfides.
Besides the mercaptans in the light cracked naphtha there can be a significant amount of thiophene which boils at about 180° F. The mercaptans can make up from 5 to 15% of the total sulfur in the fraction. If the thiophenes are not removed, the maximum total sulfur reduction possible on fractionation is 85-95% depending on the thiophene content.
U.S. Pat. No.5,597,476 discloses a two-step process in which naphtha is fed to a first distillation column reactor which acts as a depentanizer or dehexanizer with the lighter material containing most of the olefins and mercaptans being boiled up into a first distillation reaction zone where the mercaptans are reacted with diolefins to form sulfides which are removed in the bottoms along with any higher boiling sulfur compounds. The bottoms are subjected to hydrodesulfurization in a second distillation column reactor where the sulfur compounds are converted to H2S and removed.
It is an advantage of the present invention that a full boiling range naphtha stream is hydrodesulfurized by splitting it into boiling range fractions which are treated to simultaneously hydrodesulfurize and fractionate the fractions. It is a further advantage of the present invention that the sulfur may be removed from the light portion of the stream to a heavier portion of the stream without any substantial loss of olefins. It is a particular feature of the present invention that substantially all of the sulfur contained in the naphtha is ultimately converted to H2S which is quickly removed from the catalyst zones and easily distilled away from the hydrocarbons without producing recombinant mercaptans and with reduced hydrogenation of olefins.